August 14, 2017

Imaginging how the internet "could put an end to prisons as we know them"

Gosh knows the modern digital revolution and the internet has brought the demise of a number of brick-and-mortar institutions ranging from music stores to travel agencies. But this new article from Australia makes the case that the internet could bring an end to brick-and-mortar prisons. The intriguing piece is headlined "Internet of incarceration: How AI could put an end to prisons as we know them," and here is how it gets started:

Dan Hunter is a prison guard's worst nightmare. But he's not a hardened crim. As dean of Swinburne University's Law School, he's working to have most wardens replaced by a system of advanced artificial intelligence connected to a network of high-tech sensors.

Called the Technological Incarceration Project, the idea is to make not so much an internet of things as an internet of incarceration. Professor Hunter's team is researching an advanced form of home detention, using artificial intelligence, machine-learning algorithms and lightweight electronic sensors to monitor convicted offenders on a 24-hour basis.

"If we had to use human beings, the cost of monitoring every single type of interaction would be prohibitively expensive," he says. But new technologies are now capable of providing automated surveillance at a fraction of that expense, he says, using equipment that's already in existence or under development.

Under his team's proposal, offenders would be fitted with an electronic bracelet or anklet capable of delivering an incapacitating shock if an algorithm detects that a new crime or violation is about to be committed. That assessment would be made by a combination of biometric factors, such as voice recognition and facial analysis.

His vision is futuristic, but it isn't simply technological fetishism. He's convinced such automation will make for a better society. Under his proposal, the main costs of incarceration are borne by the offender and his or her family, not by the state, while law-breakers are isolated from each other, decreasing the risk of offenders becoming hardened by the system.

While technology has transformed our society, the jails of the 21st century operate pretty much as they did 100 years ago. "We are at the point now where we can fundamentally rethink the way in which we incarcerate people," Professor Hunter says. "If what we want to do is we want to keep the community safe, if we want to have the greatest possibility of rehabilitation of the offender and if we want to save money, then there are alternatives to prison that actually make a lot of sense."

Readers may recall this prior post flagging this recent paper authored by Dean Hunter and colleagues titled "Technological Incarceration and the End of the Prison Crisis"